After the flop of the last Vax day, the director of the Cnr of Pavia proposes to accelerate also with pharmacies
PAVIA. What to do in order not to repeat the Vax-day flop dedicated to 60-69 year olds, held on 6 June last? That day, no more than 60 people out of an audience of 13,000 showed up in the hubs of the province of Pavia. Indolence? Fear? Difficulty getting around? A proposal on how to act in order “not to disperse people who are potentially able to get vaccinated,” is advanced by Professor Giovanni Maga, director of the Cnr of Pavia. It can be summarized as follows: “If the 60-year-olds do not reach the hubs, we must bring the vaccines to their home, through general practitioners and pharmacies”.
Who risks more
The low turnout on the second Vax day for the 60-year-olds from Pavia who reside in centers with less than 3,200 inhabitants, passed under the magnifying glass of Ats, of the hubs themselves and in this case of experts such as Maga. The virologist from Pavia states: «For those aged 50 and over, the risk of ending up in hospital for Covid and having a serious illness increases: in a 60-year-old it could be double the probability that, in the same conditions, a 40-year-old has. Obviously this also depends on the person’s state of health ».
More deaths
And the risk of death also increases: «When we looked at the excess of mortality – continues Maga – we saw that, starting from the age of 60, one and a half times more people had died than we had expected. It is true that pathologies have an impact, but age is one of the most important risk factors ». Hence the invitation to get vaccinated, which comes from Maga, as from all the protagonists of the Pavia vaccination campaign, which has been going on for months. «The 60-year-olds, therefore, have all the convenience to be vaccinated, because they risk – insists the virologist -. The perfectly healthy over 60 is not common: most suffer from chronic diseases typical of age: hypertension, diabetes, obesity or some vascular problem which, if added to the infection, can degenerate and aggravate the symptoms ».
If the goal is to “reduce, and possibly eliminate, the number of hospitalizations and deaths”, for Maga there is only one strategy: “We must immunize as many people as possible: not only the 60-year-olds but also the frail, as for for example cancer patients “. And here, underlines the director of the Cnr of Pavia, “the network of basic medicine comes into play, including pharmacies, which are distributed throughout the territory”.
Involve general practitioners and pharmacies
“The strategy to be implemented, therefore, provides, on the one hand, a work of information, because it is convenient given the amount of vaccines we have available, which makes clear their effectiveness and any side effects based on the conditions physical of those who hire them – concludes Maga -. But on the other hand, an integration to the strategy implemented by the Region is also desirable. The decision to organize mass vaccination centers is fine. However, now that we have more limited numbers of people, such as the 60-69 year olds, who do not arrive at the centers because they are limited or have logistical difficulties, it would be appropriate to take a further step. I do not think it is wrong that family doctors, who know their patients, contact them to convince them to get vaccinated. In the province we have reached half of the Pavia people treated with the first anti-Covid dose, however this is not a goal. From the point of view of collective protection, we cannot yet say that we are calm ». –